1. Field of Invention
The present invention is generally related to an apparatus having cutter elements for destroying a plurality of articles such as paper and discs. In particular, the apparatus comprises a shaft that is shared and rotated in one direction for destroying paper and rotated in another direction for destroying discs.
2. Background
The use of shredders is well-known for shredding items such as documents and papers, discs such as CDs, DVDs, etc.
A common type of shredder has a shredder mechanism contained within a housing that is removably mounted atop a container. The shredder mechanism typically has a series of cutter elements that shred articles such as paper and documents fed therein and discharges the shredded articles downwardly into the container. Because CDs and DVDs are often used to store the same type of information as paper, it logically follows that businesses would want to destroy CDs and DVDs containing confidential information, and make them unreadable. Thus, some shredders have been used for shredding both paper and discs (e.g., see U.S. Pat. No. 6,550,701 B1). CDs and DVDs, however, are generally disc-shaped structures that are rigid, or at least semi-rigid, and the cutting elements typically used in shredders for cutting paper may not be well-suited for effectively destroying such objects.
In one approach, the prior art relies on the addition of a separate shaft with cutter elements to destroy discs. A rotatable first and second shaft are provided in a shredder. A third shaft is then added to the shredder. The first and second shafts are rotated and used together as a pair when there is a need to destroy paper. The second and third shafts are rotated and used together as a pair when there is a need to destroy discs. However, the use of a third shaft in a shredder is cumbersome and not cost-effective. The addition of the shaft requires more parts, assembly time and money per shredder. The materials used for the shaft or cutting elements must be strong and durable. Also, the rotating shafts that are used to shred a disc into multiple pieces require a large amount of torque and power to shred the disc. Examples of such prior art approaches are shown in U.S. Pat. No. 6,676,050 B2, U.S. Patent Application Publication 2006/10086224 A1, German Patent 19937735 A1, and Chinese Patent 2693343 Y.